In clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the number of incidental findings is remarkably high. An incidental finding is the detection of unrelated and previously unknown pathology within the scope of a specific imaging study. Typically, incidental findings are found due to the cross sectional multi-dimensional nature of MR images. For instance, a recently published study (Khosa F, Romney B P, Costa D N, Rofsky N M, Manning W J, “Prevalence of Noncardiac Findings on Clinical Cardiovascular MRI”, AJR 196: W380-W386 (2011)) retrospectively determined the prevalence and significance of non-cardiac findings (43%) on clinical cardiovascular MRI. The number of worrisome findings is relatively low (4.7% of non-cardiac findings). However, overlooking unsuspected pathology in images may have substantial impact on the health and disease management of the patient and may have legal consequences for a reading physician. The same study noted that most (99%) of the non-cardiac findings have been identified by using one of two standard sequences that are commonly used in cardiovascular MRI, namely a steady state free precession (SSFP) sequence and a T1 weighted spin echo sequence.
A typical cardiac examination consists of the acquisition of multiple images of the heart in different orientations using dedicated sequences that generate desired image contrast. Respiratory motion degrades image quality of cardiac MR images and is therefore often eliminated by instructing the patient to hold his breath during data acquisition. As a result, the scanner is idle while the patient recovers from a previous scan, or breath hold instructions are issued for the subsequent scan. Other causes of idle-time between scans include preparation of subsequent imaging protocols or use of equipment such as contrast agent injectors. FIG. 1 shows the scanner activity of a typical cardiac MRI study. A scanner is typically acquiring MRI data during about 15% of an entire study time (as determined using DICOM image data header information of resulting images). In non-cardiac studies the amount of idle time may be lower. A system according to invention principles addresses this inefficiency and related problems.